Movie Review | 'Enigma'

Among the Code Crackers Behind Egghead Lines

By A. O. SCOTT

Published: April 19, 2002

Michael Apted's new film, "Enigma," is a densely plotted historical thriller (based on a novel by Robert Harris) set in Bletchley Park, the English country estate that was the center of British code-breaking activities in World War II. Mr. Harris, whose other books include "Fatherland" and "Archangel," specializes in turning the great disasters of 20th-century history into revisionist potboilers full of sex, danger and intriguing, if not always plausible, speculation.

In the movie the cracking of the Germans' Enigma code — a pivotal event not only in the war but also in the development of modern computer technology — is linked to Stalin's prewar massacre of the Polish officer corps in Katyn forest (an atrocity that only came to light much later), and also, more mundanely, to the romantic agony of a Cambridge mathematician named Tom Jericho, played by Dougray Scott.

At the start of the picture Tom is returning to Bletchley after a leave of absence occasioned by a nervous breakdown, the aftereffects of which appear to be an aversion to shampoo and shaving cream. The cause of the crisis was an unhappy love affair with a Bletchley filing clerk named Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows), who is shown in flashbacks (apparently shot through a filter made of honey) cavorting with the better-shaven, less hangdog Tom and then throwing him over after he refuses to let her see some math problems he's been working on. Heartbroken, he follows her over hill and dale, bellowing her name and professing his love until he is sent off to a more restful environment.

Now, however, Claire has, as the British so winningly put it, gone missing, and Tom must find her, with the help of her dowdy housemate and co-worker, Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet). Although Ms. Winslet gamely tries to muffle her sexiness in dowdy clothes and nerdy mannerisms, this Hermione Granger act only succeeds in making her more crush-worthy than ever, but then again that was probably the idea.

Hester and Jericho's mutual friend Claire, it seems, was involved in some nefarious business, possibly involving a supercilious intelligence agent named Wigram (Jeremy Northam). In the meantime, the Germans have changed their code and are about to attack a flotilla of American ships bringing supplies and material across the Atlantic, and Wigram snoops around looking for security breaches.

He is especially suspicious of the cryptographers — a raggedy bunch of Bolsheviks, stammerers and other assorted oddballs — and also disgusted that these "swots" have become, in the topsy-turvy wartime world, as glamorous and sexy as fighter pilots or upper-crusty spyboys like himself.

Mr. Northam, who nearly stole "Gosford Park" with a song, is the only performer in "Enigma" — which opens today in the New York metropolitan region, Los Angeles, Chicago and Lexington, Ky. — who shows any spontaneity or verve. Much is made of Claire's mischievous spark: she dances around her room in stockings and slip and kicks up her heels at a London nightclub. But she is really about as lively as a wartime pinup, and written in about as many dimensions.

Mr. Northam, impeccably turned out in chalk-stripe suits and tilted fedoras, his mouth a permanent smirk, radiates an easy contentment: he knows his character is a stereotype and therefore doesn't strain to be anything more. Strain, on the other hand, is the main emotion displayed by Mr. Scott, who seems to be searching for a coherent account of his character's psychology. It would be easier to crack the U-boat code.

The mystery of "Enigma" is how a rich historical subject, combined with so much first-rate talent — a highly capable (if not always exciting) director, a fine English cast, a script by Tom Stoppard — could have yielded such a flat, plodding picture. The producers are Lorne Michaels and Mick Jagger, from whom one might expect at least a touch of naughtiness, but the movie is thoroughly square and responsible, dotting every narrative "i" and crossing every thematic "t" so that the drama is stifled by exposition.

So many subplots compete for our attention and so many scenes of keypunching and pencil-pushing are tricked out with sub-Hitchcock suspense effects that the movie is a muddle. The dialogue seems to have been written not by Mr. Stoppard but by a licensed Tom Stoppard software program: it sounds smart and witty without really being either. But Mr. Stoppard is not to blame for the bizarre climax, which shifts the action suddenly to Scotland and invites us to entertain a geopolitical scenario too ludicrous even to qualify as speculation.

Directed by Michael Apted; written by Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by Robert Harris; director of photography, Seamus McGarvey; edited by Rick Shaine; music by John Barry; production designer, John Beard; produced by Lorne Michaels and Mick Jagger; released by Manhattan Pictures International. Running time: 117 minutes. This film is rated R.